Ring: New Gesture Controller from the Future

“Ring” is a new product from Logbar inc. and takes gesture control one step further by abandoning the touchscreen. Ring allows their wearer to interact with smartphone, tablets, home appliances and even enables gesture-enabled payment options – all that and more just with your index finger.

About Logbar

Logbar inc. hails from San Carlos in California, USA and Tokyo, Japan and has worked on Ring since 2013. Within a single year their R&D team went through 6 hardware revisions and managed to make a sleek design that houses technology in very small space. CEO Takuro Yoshida states that they are ready for the next step and launched a campaign on the popular crowdsourcing portal Kickstarter.com.

Features

Gesture ControlGesture patterns let you control devices in your environment. You may use the default patterns on your everyday environment or use the Ring app to easily create your own patterns.

Text inputWith Ring Font in place Logbar has created a way to easily learn alphabetic and numeric input. Just by “writing” with into the air with your index finger you can feed a device with text.

Payment
Do your virtual payment by drawing a “check” mark with your finger and you’re done.

AlertsLED lighting and a vibration motor within Ring indicate notifications being received on your devices. No beeps, no nasty sound by your phone vibrating across the desk and you will just feel a gentle nudge on your finger – impossible to miss this one.

What’s in the box?

What technologies are supported?

Logbar is currently indicating full compatibility with iOS 7 and Android KitKat devices (and higher). Compatibility with the Windows Phone is announced to be “coming soon”. There will also be a Ring store for apps that were developed for Ring. Supporting devices that will extend the usefulness and reach of Ring are also already in development.

How to get it?

Within the Kickstarter campaign page you are able to review details and back the development of Ring up by making a financial pledge. A level pledges will allow you early access to get Ring as soon as the first items are produced. The TechAcute.com team could not resist but to support this great idea and we are looking forward to receive Ring in July 2014. If you are curious about this kind of gadgets you should consider to have a look too before the end of the campaign on the 4th of April.

Timeline

Summary

I think that Ring wields highly interesting technology wrapped in a modern design. We are looking forward to our first Ring to arrive in the office to try it out. Even though Ring looks very useful and highly potent its real usefulness in the future will be relying on solutions being developed around it. I do hope that many third-party developers will have a look at Ring and build nifty solutions around it. I see Ring mainly in consumer entertainment sector and home automation but maybe there will be a use case in the enterprise world in the future.

What do you think? Have you already pledged as well? Do you like the idea or have another opinion? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!

Hi there and thanks for reading my article! I’m Chris the founder of TechAcute. I write about technology news and share experiences from my life in the enterprise world. Drop by on Twitter and say ‘hi’ sometime. 😉